My most recent sewing project - a case for my handheld game systems, based on the ‘Power Trip’ pattern by ByAnnie, modified and nerded up.
The Sheikah emblem is from the Nintendo wiki, printed on dark t-shirt transfer paper and ironed on to the base fabric. Then I quilted around the edge to secure it and add dimension. (All the quilting was done freehand, so the wobbles add to its rustic hipster charm. ;) )
The original pattern has the case at 7.5″ x 10″, and I brought it down to about 6″. It had two internal zipper pockets and the one external one, which felt a bit much, so I killed one of the internal zipper pockets. Also rotated the sides 180 degrees respective to the handle, so that crap doesn’t fall out of the mesh pockets when I carry it around.
The mesh pockets were supposed to be stitched down into three and two sections, but I’ve got one at full width and the other TBD - it’s intended for an ODroid Go system that a friend is building for me, and I’ll tack the mesh down to the appropriate sizes for the system and charger once I have it in hand. (currently being demonstrated by my old DS Lite)
Also added a snap to the top of the mesh to keep everything a little more secure.
It’s a great pattern, and fairly easy to both follow and deconstruct / mess around with if you’re an intermediate-level sewer. I’m very pleased with the way this one worked out.
I rarely post pictures of the kids in my life, but this shoot just worked out so well!
Thing 1 as Rey, discovering tree climbing for the first time. This is technically last year’s Purim costume, but it resurfaces from the tickle trunk a lot.
Costume made by me. The basic belts and boots are from Wal*Mart; pouch was a gift from about 20 years ago, origin/maker unknown. Staff is a kitbashed Hallowe’en prop staff with strap added. Remote control BB-8 (not to scale).
While I’m in a sharing mood, this was my most recent busy-hands project. The pillow is made from some scraps of sari fabric I have in my stash, and the cross-stitch pattern is from here: http://etsy.me/23pgXBH
It is sitting on my couch now, because I am an adult and I do what I like.
Also, I love our local Value Village. They know me by now, and our conversations go like this.
"What's on the list this time?"
"An obnoxious straw hat, three cheap-ass wedding rings, four crinolines, an old lady's sweater, two lifejackets, three sixties-style sheath dresses in blue, apricot and pink, a leather jacket, two pairs of sunglasses, and a pair of green pedal-pushers, size 16."
"No lifejackets, prom girls bought all the crinolines, but the best stupid hats are over here..."
A very dear and beloved friend of mine, yafgcrich, is a big fan of Space: 1999. Even so, I forgive him. He's been dying for the commander's orange jacket (lord help me) for years, and I've started working on it now. I haven't been able to find any tutorials for this particular cosplay, and I know there's still something of a fandom out there, so I figured I may as well blog it as I go in case it's of use to anyone.
THIS ISN'T A TUTORIAL. You might learn stuff, but I am definitely doing to be messing around and making mistakes as I go. So. Follow along, and please do comment - they keep me motivated!
I did the pattern modifications today (first of many rounds?), and notes + photos are behind the read more.
Hokay. So this is the jacket we're talking about (far right):
A screamingly seventies long jacket, with turn-back lapels, topstiching everywhere, padded and quilted shoulder yoke, and a really interesting departmental colour insert on the lower half of the left sleeve. That was a standard part of Space: 1999 costume design; department was indicated not by colour of shirt, like in Star Trek, but in the left sleeve alone. Charcoal appears to designate Officer-in-Command, rather than purely command track.
I did my usual 'has anyone put up a tutorial for this yet' google around, and while some other Space: 1999 pieces have been done, especially some gorgeous model work, this hadn't. Next step - poking around for vintage patterns that have the same general aesthetic, rather than having to draft everything from scratch.
I was lucky enough to find this one through an Etsy vendor, and snatched it up. It's not perfect, but it's got the length and the lapels, which are the things I wanted the most.
I will have to make some modifications - the pattern is a very simple self-faced four-piece construction, and I need to turn this into a lined jacket with a solid shoulder.
The easiest way to make pattern modifications is to trace the pattern onto butcher paper, and mess around with it there.
I took Rich's measurements so that I'd know right off what would need to change. He's a bit thicker around the middle than the pattern is designed for, and he's a 44 chest rather than a 42, so it'll have to get a bit bigger in a few places.
I'm going to make a muslin first, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to mess around with the fit. Knowing this, I'm doing a realllly basic modification to the side seams; basically just straightening them out and losing all the shaping. That'll give me a couple of extra inches to play with, and I can adjust to fit Rich's body as necessary before hitting the good fabric.
There's an interesting design detail on this jacket, and that's this little collar point. Normally you'd expect to see the collar attach to a jewel neckline that comes in to the centre of the body on about a 90 degree angle to the centre front, but not so much here. So I'm going to screw around with the collar pattern and see if I can replicate that.
The one thing you never want to do when modifying a collar is to change the length of the neck line - that's the seam edge that attaches to the garment neck. It's got to be the same length on both pieces.
So I'm going to flip the collar pattern and trace the up-curve upside down.
it'll keep the edge the same length, but point it off in the other direction. Should work. We'll see.
I'm not going to do anything to the sleeves until I see them on him. These ones come with a self-facing, which is useful; the only thing I'll need to mess with is the neat cutaway piece where the left sleeve connects to the charcoal piece. I'll do those design lines on the muslin at the fitting.
What's left? Just the yoke. The original design has solid shoulders that have been topstitched through in a way that looks like they've been quilted.
I can replicate that by adding a layer of interfacing underneath to stiffen the shoulders and topstitch through that; but first, I need a single shoulder piece rather than a shoulder seam along the top.
The way to convert a pattern is to move the seams. I tape the front and back patterns together at the balance marks on the shoulder; that creates a single big unit. Ignore the ease in the back shoulder; it's not important here.
Now I need to figure out where to start and end the yoke section. Judging by the images, the yoke is curved on the back and goes on a diagonal on the front. It sort of looks like the sleeve notches would be a decent place to start and stop them, so I'm going to just draw the lines in from there and eyeball it on the back.
I'm going to leave a lot of seam allowance both on the top of the front and back sections and the bottom of the yoke pieces when I cut everything out, so I'll have a lot of room to play around with fit.
The collar ends where the zipper begins on the original jacket, so I'll use my attempt at a new collar point as my landmark to end the yoke line at centre front.
(hard to see in this picture, so I outlined the pieces. Front yoke in red, collar in green. Old collar line in dotted green.)
Once again, I'll be able to manipulate and change all of this at the next stage if it doesn't look right, but it gives me a place to start.
Now cut apart the front and back sections (remember to make balance marks first, so you remember how they go back together!)
Lay the taped yoke piece down on the paper, and retrace it. Clean up any pointy bits or jagged lines with a curved ruler, to make sure everything lies clean and neat.
(I'm ignoring pockets entirely for the moment. I'll draw on where they need to go in the first fitting.)
So I was giving my studio a bit of a clean-out this evening, and found two boxes full of my old dying stuff. Gloves, acid reactive dyes, mixing jars, and a bunch of silk scarf blanks...
[sideeyes]
I have ideeeeeas now. Gonna set aside a day next week to play.
I've also just spent the past two hours processing and resizing pictures for the final updates (why, in the name of all that's holy, did I take so many photos?), so tonight will be just cuffs and waistband; the zipper and hood process will have to wait until tomorrow when I have brain cells back.
In the meantime, a couple of kind of crappy pictures of the finished piece (proper photoshoot to come, eventually. The Spousal Unit isn't so good at working my phone camera.):
This one is simple, for the more 'undercover everyday' hero look. If you wanted it to be more obviously Wiccan, you could easily add a round belt buckle applique on the front panels before attaching the pocket linings, and red circles on the cuffs before folding and stitching them, the same way we did the stars on Captain Marvel.
Last update, we got the sleeves on and the side seams sewn. The last thing we need to add to finish the sleeves is the cuffs. You should have two rectangles of grey felt for the cuffs. Grab them, and pin them right sides to right sides, along the notched line, to form tubes.
Sew along the notched edge only, and press the seam open.
Fold the tube down on itself, fuzzy side in, and stitch along the raw edge of the tube to keep the two layers together.
I threw them through the serger, because it's closer to my worktable. Now check to make sure they're the same width, depth and length, and that you didn't sew one backwards by accident.
It happens.
If you're happy, give them a good press. Remember to use a press cloth (a pillowcase works nicely) between the fleece and the iron, if you've got it on a high setting. You don't want to get this far in a project and have something melt or catch fire.
Try the hoodie on and check your sleeve length. I know from experience with the Captain Marvel hoodie, which also used this pattern, that my arms are the same length as the sleeves before the cuffs are added. So I want to add the cuffs that same distance (3") up from the sleeve end, to make the cuffs hit at the right place when finished.
Check my depth, and mark the 3" up with pins. Flip the cuff so that the serged/sewn edge is pointing toward the wrist end of the sleeve, and line the seam line (1/4" up from the edge, in my case) up with the pin line on the sleeve, right sides to right sides.
Pin the cuff in place, matching the cuff seam with the underarm seam. You may need to stretch the sleeve or the cuff a little bit to get everything to fit neatly; make sure to match the halfway mark first, then quarters around the circles, then stretch between those marks.
Then baste.
I have a lot of extra sleeve length sticking out the bottom, so I'm going to trim some of that off before going to the sewing machine, and then the serger to finish the seams.
Pull the cuff out, leaving the sleeve inside out, and press the seam well. Turn right side out, press again, then turn inside out one last time and press the seam allowances up away from the cuff.
Waistband
Grab the waistband sections that you cut, and lay them out in alternating order: front panel (black), side panel (grey), back panel (black), side panel (grey) and front panel (black). Make sure that the pieces are equal to or just slightly smaller than the hoodie sections as they're sewn.
Pin the pieces to each other in that order, right sides to right sides, and sew the seams.
Press the seams open.
Fold the waistband down on itself, wrong sides to wrong sides, along the length. Serge or sew the bottom long edge to keep it together in a long tube. Match the colour blocking seams to themselves.
Pin the waistband to the raw edge of the hoodie waist, matching seams perfectly. Baste the waistband in place along the raw edge, paying very careful attention to the colour change seams.
Sew the waistband on, remove the basting, and press the seam open. Press up, then zig-zag or serge the seam allowances.
Flip the hoodie right-side-up, and topstitch the waist seam. I swapped colours out at the seams, using black thread to topstitch the black sections, then loading grey thread into the machine to topstitch the grey sections.
Topstitch on the hoodie side of the seam, not on the waistband, and catch the seam allowance underneath.
Do not backstitch your topstitching, except at the centre fronts. Leave long tails instead, then thread those tails through a hand needle, and feed them through to the wrong side. Tie off, thread into a hand needle again, and take a couple of small stitches to lock the threads down and prevent fraying.
Lovely!
It's now past my bedtime; next time, for real - hood, zipper and collar.
